On Wed, 06 Jul 2005 11:05:13 -0400, Goedjn
wrote:



Bill Turner wrote:
I use a Dremel too, but not to take the head off. Use a thin cutting
wheel and grind a screwdriver slot in the head, then use a regular
screwdriver to remove it. Works great if done carefully.


Back in the days when I used to help do aircraft annual inspections, we often
used this technique for inspection port screw heads that were stripped. It
works great most of the time.


It is good for many situations but I believe OP already
described this as one of the more typical plastic enclosure
methods where the screws are well-recessed, it would require
cutting a fair distance through the casing around the screw,
maybe even enough to make the casing structurally unsound
due to cutting the slots.

Line the depression with paper, with the screw-head
poking through. Then mix up a wad of 2-part epoxy,
and stuff it in the hole.

This epoxy idea may work, but it seems you left out a few
details as a hole filled with epoxy isn't much easier to get
out than one with an odd head pattern. I have used epoxy
before though, sometimes with success and other times it
just tore up the epoxy. This was using JDWeld, do you have
a better suggestion for a stronger epoxy? I'd also thought
about saving some aluminum filings the next time I did any
metalwork (non-computer related, just fine almost dustlike
Al) then mixing that into the epoxy to fortify it.

I still like my idea of filing down a bit because if you
ever come across that pattern & size again you'd already
have the bit.